Pictured: Vaccine Exchange members leading the way in vaccine development.

Vaccines are one of the fastest growing sectors in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Vaccine technology developer Vaxine, in a project with partners Mylexa and the Australian Respiratory and Sleep Medicine Institute (ARASMI), is bringing together a community of researchers, developers and industries to drive growth of Australian vaccine development.

The MTPConnect-supported Vaccine Exchange Project creates a streamlined pathway for Australian vaccine development from the time of conception at the laboratory bench, typically in a University research lab, all the way through to human trials and commercialisation.

According to Vaxine, while Australia has an exemplary record of basic immunology and vaccine research, more needs to be done to capture the commercial value of this Australian research.

Through building a comprehensive database and website that will act as an interactive forum, industry-leading members of the Australian vaccine community now can search for collaborators - from both the scientific and commercial environment.

The World Health Organization[1] estimates the global vaccine market will be worth as much as US$100 billion by 2025 so there’s much to be gained from a stronger, more connected and commercially empowered Australian vaccine development sector.

Vaxine’s Business Manager, Sharen Pringle, says the publicly accessible database gives the vaccine community a forum to exchange ideas and promote their research.

“The Vaccine Exchange Project – supported by MTPConnect – for the first time provides the opportunity for vaccine researchers and companies to reach out to each other via the website and establish new collaborations and networks,” Ms Pringle says.

“Prior to Vaccine Exchange, there was no centralised resource to search for other vaccine activities going on in Australia. Vaccine Exchange already includes over 153 members and continues to grow.

“Vaccine Exchange provides the perfect forum to do this and hopefully will expedite and accelerate Australian vaccine development through to commercialisation.”

Vaccine Exchange held its first workshop in Adelaide in 2017 and most recently, in December 2018 held the third workshop in the series that specifically focused on strategies to overcome barriers and challenges to vaccine development, with an expert panel including Mike Gold, Meera Verma, Jenny Hertz, Tim Kuchel and Matthew Palmer all delivering talks and commentary that clearly resonated with the vaccine developer audience. Attendees were very keen to have more such workshops in 2019, whereby a panel of experts would work with specific vaccine developers to move their projects towards the clinic.